A strategic authority, with responsibilities for roads, public transport, planning, emergency services and waste disposal, it was composed of 100 directly elected members drawn from the four metropolitan boroughs of South Yorkshire: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield.

The election in May 1973 produced an overwhelming Labour majority (82 out of 100 Councillors) who, led by Sir Ron Ironmonger, had a radical manifesto ready to go, centred on transport, employment and improving the environment.

Specifically they wanted to improve public transport, challenge the efficacy of urban motorways, clear slag heaps and rectify the disastrous environmental detritus of two centuries of heavy industry and mining.

However, for a while the SYCC was the toast of Labour local authorities, and many, like Ken Livingstone’s GLC, saw it as a model when considering their own urban traffic and transport problems.

In the Council’s final term of office (after the 1981 Election – Lab 82% again) it concentrated its energies on innovative forms of job creation to offset the ravages to the industry of the county, caused by the policies of the Thatcher Government.

When Mrs Thatcher defeated the Argentines in the Falklands, enabling her to win the 1983 General Election, it wasn’t just Gen. Galtieri and the Belgrano that were sunk.

She now felt confident enough to turn on her “enemies” at home who included Labour local authorities, especially the GLC who she decided to abolish.

As a geographical concept South Yorkshire is well established, unlike the now defunct Humberside or Avon, that were also new counties in 1974, while few now remember the West Riding let alone pine for its return.